Wedding photography is a professional service and, just like the caters, seamstresses, tailors, chefs and sommeliers you hired you're exchanging money for someone at the top of their field with real world experience. All photographers are not created equal, just like any other profession.

Additionally, a big part of photographing a wedding is editing. Not just sorting through the best of the best to create a story of your day, I mean literally applying colour treatment and hand adjusting dozens of parameters for each of the final photos which can top out in the upper 300's. The post production job is larger and takes longer than the initial day by a long shot, which the pricing reflects. You're paying one sum to cover both the shooting and editing!

Do you use flash in your photography?

There are times when it's inevitable but generally my style is to be as unobtrusive as possible. Especially during the ceremony and speeches. You're there to celebrate you and your significant other, not listen to a loud shutter and get blinded every half second for 12 hours. That being said, if the reception location or ceremony location is too dark, it will be required.

Do you shoot digital or film?

I love film and shoot a fair amount of it in my free time to decompress, but not during weddings. Everything is shot on professional grade, digital SLR cameras.

Are Two Photographers really Necessary?

I've photographed dozens of weddings at this point, some solo and some with a first assistant. The list of shots available to a solo photographer will be affected compared to having two photographers on site. There are times when you have to be in two places at once and it's just not possible. They also help keep everything running much smoother and help the primary photographer focus on creating the best visual story of your day by making sure everyone's grandparents actually did make into the family photos.

Why should I hire a professional?

First, see this answer above. Second, a couple that had talked about booking me eventually went with a family member who had an entry level SLR to photograph their wedding. This uncle apparently wasn't just taking candid's, he spent 3 hours with the couple on a farm, did posed photos with full family and everything. He ruined every frame. The couple ended up hiring a professional photographer to attempt to edit what he gave them. The photographer said they had never seen such poorly exposed work in their career and was only able to save one photograph.

Obviously that's an extreme case, but if you're comfortable spending $500+ on a beautiful cake, $1000's on clothing and rentals but don't want any photos to remember it all by, that's absolutely your prerogative!

Can we get the negatives?

Short answer, no.

Long answer, the high resolution print versions that are provided in my packages are more than sufficient to print large scale prints for yourself, unless there was a specific need for raw image, an average person does not need 64gb of RAWS.